Science's Less Accurate Grandmother: Transformers UK #255–89: ...Perchance to Dream and Other Stories (From Stockbridge to Segonus: A Doctor Who Magazine Comics Marathon, Part 49)

19 June 2023

Transformers UK #255–89: ...Perchance to Dream and Other Stories (From Stockbridge to Segonus: A Doctor Who Magazine Comics Marathon, Part 49)

And here, my journey through Marvel UK's Transformers strip comes to an end—as does my journey through the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip and adjacent material. This won't be all I have to say on either topic, however. Eventually I plan to reread the 1980s Marvel Transformers comic integrating US and UK material in chronological order, and I also plan to do a couple posts summing up my thoughts on the DWM strip as a whole.

A wise man once said, "It's over... finished!" but he was even wiser when he uttered these words: "It never ends!"

from Transformers #258

...Perchance to Dream, from Transformers #255-60 (3 Feb.–10 Mar. 1990), reprinted in Transformers: Perchance to Dream (Titan, 2006)

script by Simon Furman; art by Andy Wildman, Staz, and John Stokes; letters by Glib and Stuart Bartlett

The last (by titling convention, anyway) multi-part story of the UK comic strip begins the transition into what would be known as Earthforce. Many pixels have been spilled on this topic, but basically Simon Furman decided to stop having the UK strip tie into the US one at all, not even the sense of the UK one having small side stories to the bigger US stories like he'd been doing since issue #240 or so. Instead, he would split the characters up: since the US strip was focused on Optimus Prime and company in space, the UK strip would follow a set of different characters back on Earth.

This story sets that up by reviving five classic off-line characters so that they can star in the new strip. Galvatron is infesting their dreams, so we get five parts of flashback adventures, and then in part six they all wake up and defeat him. It's a fine enough set of vignettes, but Galvatron is defeated absurdly easily for someone who had once been a powerhouse of the strip.

from Transformers #261

"Starting Over!" / "Two Steps Back!" / "Break-Away!" / "Desert Island Risks!" / "Once upon a Time..." / "Life in the Slow Lane" / "Snow Fun!", from Transformers #261-67 (17 Mar.–28 Apr. 1990), reprinted in Transformers: Earthforce (Titan, 2005)

script by Simon Furman; art by Staz, Andy Wildman, Pete Knifton & Pete Venters, and Jeff Anderson; letters by Stuart Bartlett, Peri Godbold, and Glib

This is a fun set of strips that moves us into the Earthforce format, but also demonstrates its power. First we get a fun adventure where the characters revived in ...Perchance to Dream have to stop Megatron from destroying Earth's atmosphere. Why? I don't know, but it doesn't bother me, nor does the fact that according to the US strip at this time, Megatron can't even be here doing this. It's all worth it for the bits where the characters themselves complain about how gimmicky Transformers has gotten. "Probably some Microheadtargetmaster with a Pretender shell!" And then a fun ending where everyone just charges Megatron. Then we get a fun story about Grimlock versus Shockwave and his minions and then the whole premise is put into place: Optimus delegates Grimlock to run things on Earth.

I know some people love Grimlock, but for me a little bit of Grimlock goes a long way... there's only so much I can read about how he's "different" from the other Autobots. But Earthforce, it turns out, is the exact right amount of Grimlock. Like many loose cannon characters, he's best with a straight man, and here he's essentially got a whole team of them. Some of the stories here are bad silly (e.g., "Desert Island Risks" is improbably contrived) but many of them are good silly; any Transformers story where Grimlock's own Dinobots trick him by building a snowman of Shockwave is my kind of Transformers story. I like the serious, epic, angsty Transformers all right, but I also like the silly stuff that leavens it, and here we get a deliciously concentrated dose of it.

from Transformers #268

"Flashkcab!", from Transformers #268 (5 May 1990), reprinted in Transformers: Fallen Star (Titan, 2005)

script by Simon Furman, pencils by John Marshall, inks by Stephen Baskerville, letters by Glib

What's that, Megatron has a time machine and is attempting to rewrite the events of the Underbase saga? Okay, sure. With five pages per story, Furman can't waste time on setting things up... or ever using these concepts ever again! This one is maybe overdoing the exciting standalone adventure thing, but it's fine.

"Mystery!", from Transformers #269 (12 May 1990), reprinted in Transformers: Earthforce (Titan, 2005)

script by Simon Furman, pencils by Pete Knifton, inks by Pete Venters, letters by Glib

An Autobot arrives at the Earthforce base and discovers something terrible has happened to Wheeljack... only to realize it's all an incredibly complicated misunderstanding. Goofy fun.

from Transformers #270

"The Bad Guy's Ball!", from Transformers #270 (19 May 1990), reprinted in Transformers: Fallen Star (Titan, 2005)

script by Simon Furman, pencils by Pete Knifton, inks by Michael Eve, letters by Glib

There's been a Decepticon Civil War brewing, Shockwave versus Megatron, so the Decpticons call an "enclave" (should be "conclave," surely?) to settle who should be in charge. One of my favorite stories in this run: the whole idea of a Decepticon cease-fire social meet is a delight, and then the Autobots show up to cause problems in secret, preventing the two sides from reaching an accord. The only thing I don't like is I feel like this could be a premise for a whole twenty-page issue! Imagine this in the hands of James Roberts.

"The Living Nightlights!", from Transformers #271 (26 May 1990), reprinted in Transformers: Earthforce (Titan, 2005)

script by Simon Furman, pencils by John Marshall, inks by Stephen Baskerville, letters by Helen Stone

Dumb, contrived story about Decepticon-made evil toys. Okay, not every "goofy fun" story is a winner... but you know, it's only five pages long at worst!

from Transformers #274

"Cry Wolf!" / "Wolf in the Fold!" / "Where Wolf?", from Transformers #272-74 (2-16 June 1990), reprinted in Transformers: Way of the Warrior (Titan, 2005)

script by Simon Furman; pencils by Pete Knifton, Staz, and Jeff Anderson; inks by Michael Eve, Staz, and Stephen Baskerville; letters by Glib and Stuart Bartlett

This three-part tale returns attention to the "Survivors," the group of Autobots and Decepticons who struck out on their own. In this one, ex-Decepticon Carnivac decides to revenge himself on the Mayhem Attack Squad; it's a fun story about Carnivac doing his own thing while working alongside the Autobots, and how he humiliates Bludgeon by not killing him. All of the Survivors tales have been good, and this one is no exception; the story also links up the Survivors with Earthforce.

"Secrets" / "Bugged!" / "Internal Affairs!", from Transformers #275-77 (23 June–7 July 1990), reprinted in Transformers: Fallen Star (Titan, 2005)

script by Simon Furman; pencils by Pete Knifton, Jeff Anderson, and Simon Coleby; inks by Pete Venters and Michael Eve; letters by Glib and Stuart Bartlett

These three stories shift the focus to the Decepticons, and they are all pretty fun. First, it turns out Soundwave is spying on Megatron for Shockwave, but he plays on a fellow Decepticon's paranoia to throw suspicion off himself in a masterful move. Then Starscream makes his own play, uniting with Soundwave to depose both Megatron and Shockwave. It's so complicated you've got to love it.

from Transformers #280

"The House That Wheeljack Built!" / "Divide and Conquer!" / "The 4,000,000 Year Itch!" / "Makin' Tracks!", from Transformers #278-81 (14 July–4 Aug. 1990), reprinted in Transformers: Earthforce (Titan, 2005)

script by Simon Furman; pencils by Pete Knifton, Staz, and Jeff Anderson; inks by Michael Eve and Jeff Anderson; letters by Glib, Stuart Bartlett, and Sophie Heath

More goofy fun in "The House That Wheeljack Built": Wheeljack shows off the new Earthbase's automated defense systems... only everyone is outside the base, and you can only deactivate them from the inside, meaning everyone has to battle their way in! I also enjoyed "The 4,000,000 Year Itch!", where Optimus comes on an inspection tour at the same time Slag develops one of his periodic compulsions to murder everyone he knows(!), so Grimlock has to distract Optimus in the foreground while the other Dinobots keep subduing Slag in the background. Low farce, surely.

On the other hand, "Makin' Tracks" is similar but didn't work for me. In this case, the dead Tracks is being revived... but Grimlock hates Tracks so much he tries to kill him off again. I feel like this one went a bit too far... also, who the hell is Tracks? I don't even remember this guy or his beef with Grimlock. Plus the small art of these Titan digests made it hard to understand what was going on at the climax.

from Transformers #282

"Shut Up!"/ "Manoeuvres!", from Transformers #282-83 (11-18 Aug. 1990), reprinted in Transformers: Way of the Warrior (Titan, 2005)

script by Simon Furman, art by Staz and Pete Knifton & Pete Venters, letters by Gary Gilbert and Sophie Heath

"Shut Up!" is another great story, one that could pretty much only work as a five-pager: the Mayhem Attack Squad intimidate Red Alert into letting them out of the cell on Earthbase by not talking! "Manouvres!" is one that made little impression, on the other hand.

"Assassins" / "External Forces!" / "The Lesser Evil!", from Transformers #284-86 (25 Aug.–8 Sept. 1990), reprinted in Transformers: Fallen Star (Titan, 2005)

script by Simon Furman; pencils by Jeff Anderson, Pete Knifton, and John Marshall; inks by Michael Eve, Pete Venters, and Jeff Anderson; letters by Stuart Bartlett, Julie Hughes, and Peri Godbold

More on the complicated shenanigans of the Decepticon civil war. Shockwave and Megatron team up to assassinate Starscream, making it look like Soundwave is responsible; the Mayhem Attack Squad attempts to kill Starscream and Soundwave; the Autobats have to save Starscream because they need a transfusion from him to defeat an illness Snarl has (we saw this illness in a flash-forward story in the 1990 annual). Enjoyable, but alas this is end of this plotline as the book itself is almost over. Shame, because I think there was a lot of mileage in it.

from Transformers #287

"Inside Story!" / "Front Line!" / "End of the Road!", from Transformers #287-89 (15-29 Sept. 1990), reprinted in Transformers: Perchance to Dream (Titan, 2006)

script by Simon Furman, pencils by Pete Knifton and Staz, inks by Pete Venters and Staz letters by Stuart Bartlett and Gary Gilbert

And here it all comes to an end, with honestly a pretty mediocre set of stories about a journalist trying to write a story about the Transformers. You'd think the giant robots tearing up the Earth would be bigger news than this story implies.

It's a shame this was it, because 1) these stories were boring, and 2) the Earthforce premise could clearly have gone on forever. I enjoyed it a lot on the whole. Sure, no big epics any more, but lots of character stuff and lots of jokes. I think this run was just as influential on James Roberts in its own way as the earlier, more epic, UK storylines.

from Transformers Annual 1991

"The Magnificent Six!", from Transformers Annual [1991]

script by Simon Furman, art by Staz, art by Louise Cassell

The 1991 annual only contained one original story, so it wasn't worth buying (as I did the 1990 edition), but I realized you could get the story on the Internet Archive. This text story has six Autobots sent on a mission to Cybertron, only for five of them it's a return to the site of their greatest failure. This is an above-average text story about the traumas of war; it also felt to me like there was a straight line from this to Last Stand of the Wreckers; Megadeath is surely a proto-Overlord.

(This mostly features the set of characters resurrected in ...Perchance to Dream; I would suggest it goes after that story, before they are deployed to Earth in "Starting Over!")

"Another Time & Place", from Transformers Annual [1992], reprinted in Transformers: Best of the Rarities #1 (IDW, Aug. 2022)

script by Simon Furman, pencils by Staz, inks by Lesley Dalton, colour by Caroline Steeden

The last UK-original story is another text piece, this one set years after the end of the US strip. It's certainly the best text story the UK annuals ever did, with a mournful Optimus and a Grimlock keen to recapture old glories. So many have died, so many have changed. How can you make peace work? Again, it's hard to not see IDW's run foreshadowed here; this is the kind of think we saw explored a lot in Robots in Disguise and More than Meets the Eye. I liked this a surprising amount; I look forward to reading it someday with the full context of the US stories it follows up on.

This post is the forty-ninth in a series about the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip and Marvel UK. The next installment covers Cybermen: The Ultimate Comic Strip Collection. Previous installments are listed below:

Science's Less Accurate Grandmother

19 June 2023

Transformers UK #255–89: ...Perchance to Dream and Other Stories (From Stockbridge to Segonus: A Doctor Who Magazine Comics Marathon, Part 49)

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